- Her worship was widespread even in the Early Dynastic Period because she appears on the Narmer Palette- Hathor represents the feminine principle, as reflected in several of her symbols. She was the personification of the Milky Way, which was seen as the milk that flowed from the udders of a divine cow.
Hathor's priesthood was unusual they were both women and men, those priests and were also dancers, singers, and other entertainers.
- Hathor personifies the soft aspects of the female forms in contrast with Sekhmet- Great Royal Queens were sometimes depicted as Hathor
- Hathor cult survived the massive religious reformations of the New Kingdom, it was difficult to adsorb her soft qualities in the harder aspects of Amun of his wife Mut, thus while many other gods
and goddesses were melted down,
Hathor stood well during those reformations and survived as a strong
independent goddess well until the introduction of Christianity in Egypt

Hebrew Religion

- Hathor was the Lady of malachite, which was connected to health and reputed to have strong therapeutic properties
She was widely worshipped in the mining regions of Sinai, and protected the people from snake bites and epidemics, she was the only calf worshiped there!
- During the development of the new Hebrew religion, Moses ordered the destruction of the "Golden Calf" and desecrated her Temple at Timna, while killing 3000 followers of her cult
He ordered the erection of a shrine dedicated to the "Golden Snake" instead, to protect from such epidemics and bites, that snake of course lacked the other female aspects of the "Golden Calf", such as love and sex. Those attributes had no place in the new religion, and were viewed as symbols of human weakness
Hathor originally wears the head-dress of 18 serpents, Moses removed the female cow and
maintained the Serpent alone!
- Unfortunately this concept persisted in the later development of Christianity and Islam, which were based on the older Hebrew religion. Love, sex and joy continued to be banned , especially in Islam which established new severe punishments for any follower falling into those sins which were considered the soft aspects of human weakness
- After this ban on the human attributes of Hathor, the new monotheistic religions became much more serious, cool and detached from the soft aspects human feelings!
- Other gods melted down in a natural evolution of human mythology, but the soft qualities of Hathor the "Golden Calf", had to be
oppressed by the excessive use of force and intimidation
In fact we may assume that today's liberals in society are new "worshippers" of Hathor, since they venerate Hathor's qualities